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26 weeks pregnant- let's spend a day in labor & delivery

Wednesday, April 30, 2014

Monday was not a fun day for me.

It started with a horrible night of sleep Sunday night. I decided to eat some delicious jalapeno chips while watching Game of Thrones with the husband, which led to me having some pretty gnarly acid reflux at bedtime. I should know by now that I can't eat spicy food right before going to bed, but I really love jalapeno chips, so you can see my problem there. I was tossing and turning all night (nothing new there) and I remember waking up quite a few times feeling like I had a stomach ache or cramps. I managed to ignore it the best I could, but at 6am I woke up and was hurting pretty bad. By the time I needed to get the kids up I was writhing around and groaning on the bed so much that Shayne told me to just stay in bed and he would get the kids ready and off to school. I felt like I had cramps, my back was aching, I had chills (but no fever), and I was having a sharp pain on my lower right side. I was really hoping that with a little rest and um, a trip to the bathroom later, I might be feeling better.

Wrong.

I waited until around 10am to finally decided to call my doctor because I felt like something was really wrong. I was in even more pain than I was when I woke up and I felt like crying. The nurse I spoke to on the phone said I should probably come in to the office to see what was up, but I had to wait until 11:30 to be seen. So I writhed around and groaned some more until it was time to go.

When I got to the office, my doctor checked my urine and my cervix. They found a drop of blood in my sample and my cervix looked good. I wasn't dilated at all. I was having a lot of contractions, but that could have just been the result of being so stressed, uncomfortable, and in so much pain. She was really concerned about the cramping I was feeling though, as well as the side ache and was worried that it might be my kidneys or my appendix. She decided to send me across the street to the hospital to be admitted into labor and delivery so they could monitor my contractions, do some blood work, get an ultrasound to check on baby, my appendix, and kidneys, and to check on my placenta again since I'd been previously diagnosed with partial placenta previa. Basically, it could be a lot of different things and they wanted to check on them all, which meant I was in for a long day of sitting around in a hospital room.

So this is what my day looked like:

They started off giving me an IV to get some fluids in me. Usually I'm fine with IVs, but this one was probably the worst I've had. By the time my nurse finally got the darn thing in my vein I had blood dripping down my arm and I felt like I was going to pass out (probably partly due to the fact that I hadn't eaten since the jalapeno chips the night before). But after I was good and hydrated they pumped me up with a little morphine, so I didn't care about much anymore as long as I was finally out of pain.

Next, they strapped these lovely belts around my tummy with fetal monitors on them to watch the baby's heart rate and to monitor my contractions. At first I was having a ton of random contractions, but as my pain and anxiety level went down, the contractions subsided a little bit. My nurse had to come in about every 10 minutes though to readjust the monitors because my baby girl is a wiggly little thing and she kept moving around a ton, away from the monitor.

Then we played the waiting game. Right as I was admitted, four other girls came in too, so labor and delivery got pretty busy all of a sudden. We were basically just waiting for a technician to come in with a portable ultrasound machine, but we got pushed back in line a bit because there were other mommies who needed it more urgently than I did. I was exhausted and pretty sleepy from the morphine they gave me but I can never sleep in hospitals, so it was around that point that I discovered that the hospital had free wifi (yay!) I had some blogging and networking stuff to catch up on (as always) so I did a little bit of that while my husband managed to catch a little nap and I took pictures of him and Instagrammed them.

We waited, and waited, and waited some more. Finally, around 3pm a technician came in to do my ultrasound. By that point though the kids were almost out of school, so Shayne left to go pick them up and take them home. I told him to just stay at home and I'd let him know when I knew anything, since I knew it was going to be quite a bit longer. No sense in making anyone else hang around the hospital when I'm clearly not dying. So I had the longest ultrasound I've ever had in my life. The tech checked out baby...very thoroughly. Then she spent extra time looking at both my kidneys, my appendix, and my placenta. It took a little over an hour. When she was done I sat in my room by myself and caught up with Judge Judy for a bit. Gosh, I love Judge Judy. She's my girl. I'm so thankful I had my own room with a TV and wifi, otherwise I'd have been going crazy by then.

I ended up waiting around until about 7pm to get the results of my ultrasound read by a doctor and for my blood work to come back. At last, I had a diagnosis! My doctor saw a kidney stone on my ultrasound on the right side, which would explain the horrible back ache and right side pain I was having. The good news though, was that my placenta had moved up a little bit, so I no longer had to worry about the partial previa and I could be taken off of pelvic rest (which meant no exercise or sex for the last 7 weeks). Also, they were able to confirm once again that the baby is a very active and healthy baby girl, which was great to hear since I've been having dreams that I actually deliver a boy. So that was all good news. My nurse explained that it was up to me on what I wanted to do about passing the kidney stones- either stay at the hospital where I have an IV of morphine an try to pass it, or go home and try to manage it myself. By that point I really wanted to get out of the hospital, so I told her I wanted to go home rather than spend the night there not sleeping.

So at about 8pm I was finally discharged and sent home with some pain pills to get me through the next few days. They explained that there was no real time table for passing the kidney stone and that it could happen in the next day or so or it could be longer. Basically, I'm in for some fun days ahead until this sucker comes out. But at least there are no problems with my baby. I'd gladly take a kidney stone over anything happening to her.

So for now I'm drinking as much water as possible, hoping to flush this awesome little stone out of my body as quickly as I can. I just want to get back to feeling better so I can finish preparing for my baby girl to get here, which is coming up pretty quickly now! See? The countdown has now reached double digits.

If you follow me on Facebook or Instagram you probably already saw most of these updates. Thanks to everyone for their sweet words and concern- it means a lot! You guys are awesome.

Whoa. Very similar thing JUST happened to me! I had this crazy pain in my side and felt like I was in labor. Went to the hospital & 5 days later finally went home. Turned out it was a UTI, bladder infection & overworked kidney. What is it with kid #3?? Glad you and baby are both well. Spending time in the hospital, hooked up to IVs and baby monitors, is the most BORING and monotonous time ever!

Baby #3 is NO JOKE! I had preterm labor problems with the last one & had to go in a couple of times and get shots to stop contractions, so I'm hoping this isn't the beginning of more problems. I ended up delivering her OK though, so in the end it all worked out.

OMG...5 days in the hospital?! I would seriously go insane. I could barely handle 10 hours. Staying overnight is the worst because you can't sleep and it's sooooo uncomfortable. Plus it's hard when you have kids at home. I pray I never have to stay that long. I hope you are doing better now!

I'm glad it wasn't gall bladder issues - I've heard of a lot of moms having that problem and I had a gallbladder attack when I was pregnant with Cami and it was awful. I threw up and couldn't move. It felt like someone was stabbing me with a knife. Went to L&D and they were like oh you're having contractions, you're in prelabor. Uh...no I'm not. Had to look up my symptoms to find out what happened because they basically acted like I never came in with any pain...just contractions. :/ Hopefully the stone will be small and pass quickly.

Yeah, it was the most tedious and uncomfortable 5 days of my life. And YES to the sleeping! Impossible! And I felt too crappy to get any good reading or crocheting done or anything. What a waste!! Luckily I had lots of family help because the only time I felt less miserable was when my husband came to visit :) I am doing fine now, have to be on meds the rest of my pregnancy to prevent that happening again. That makes me nervous for baby, but what can you do?

Hope your stone passes without too much fanfare... that sounds awful. Oh, and so does pelvic rest, so glad you're off that too! And yes, let's hope this isn't the start of more problems. Maybe Baby #3 just wants to make sure they're the last one?!

I'm glad it wasn't my gall bladder either! I was telling Shayne about that stuff when we were waiting in the doctor's office because he thought it might be my appendix. I know a few people with gall bladder problems while pregnant & it sounds horrible.